Crocodile Eyes and Dancing Spiders
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: Sam knows that he's hallucinating, but he can't seem to make the crocodiles that are swimming in the tears of Maddie's eyes disappear, or get the spiders to stop tap dancing. He knows that he's not supposed to talk, but he doesn't know what he's not supposed to talk about. Will Michael and Jesse find him in time, before all of the blood rushes out of his mouth?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this.

**A/N:** Written for the hc_bingo square - hallucination. Thanks animegirl1129 for suggesting that I write BN for this prompt.

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Sam's convinced that he's hallucinating. He knows that he's been drugged, can taste the metal of it in his mouth, or maybe that's blood, his blood, or blood of the person whose ear he bit off. Did he bite someone's ear off, or was that Muhammad Ali?

His mouth's dry, but it's filled with blood, thick, cloying. And he's choking. Is that Maddie? What's she doing here? She shouldn't be here. It's dangerous.

"What's dangerous Mr. Axe?" a disembodied voice asks.

Sam can't see him, or her, or it. He can't see anything, but there's Maddie's face. And it's without a body. A head swimming in the air. She's frowning, a cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth, rouged too bright a red. Red, dripping red. Drip, drip, drip. Onto the floor, the pavement, and he can't see past the splashing red. It splashes up, hits Maddie in the face, paints her lips an even darker crimson.

He can't form words, but the disembodied voice, bearing Maddie's head, is speaking, though Maddie's lips aren't moving. Asking questions. Questions about danger, about Michael, Fi, and Jesse. Questions he can't, won't answer. Dangerous questions. Dangerous blood. Dangerous red.

"Tell me what I need to know Mr. Axe and this will end," the voice, bearing Maddie's face says, and Michael's hovering over the bodiless head, his own head bobbing up and down in the air. His face is pinched, his eyes hard, and Sam knows that Michael won't ever forgive him if he says anything. He keeps his mouth closed, and yet the red slips out, past his lips, hits the concrete with an audible 'plop'.

He laughs, it's a hollow, ringing sound. Feels rough coming out of his throat, and he thinks that something might be torn, broken there, but he doesn't know, not for certain. Drugged. He reminds himself, and there are little spiders, dressed in tuxedos, dancing at the bodiless man's feet. No longer bodiless, headless now. His feet are naked, covered in thick fur, like Big Foot's feet.

More laughter, it sounds like metal grating on metal. It hurts his ears, and he can't stand to see Maddie hurt. Can't stand to see that pain in her eyes. Michael's disappointment magnified, perfected by his mother, the woman who raised him into the man he is. Her eyes are glowing, boring into him, her lips, crimson red, stained with his blood are moving, forming soundless words.

He thinks they're saying, _Hold on, _but he can't be certain.

He can't be certain of anything. The spiders are tap dancing in front of his eyes, and they're really good, at least he thinks they are. They remind him of Sammy Davis and that little blonde, curly headed girl – Shirley Temple.

"Who else knows about the missing shipment?"

Missing shipment? Ship. Meant. Missing. Someone's missing. Sam doesn't know who. Is it Michael? No, his head is still bobbing on the open air. Jesse? Fi? Maddie?

A mouse scurries past, scatters the dancing spiders and Sam's arm is on fire, burning like liquid sulfur. Volcanic acid bites at his tongue, and he spits out lava – thick, red, hot.

_Hold on. _Maddie's mouth forms the soundless words. Her eyes are awash in tears. He thinks he sees a crocodile in them. Its teeth sharp and crisscrossing. It's dangerous to have crocodiles in one's eyes, and Maddie's eyes are too beautiful, too expressive for something that deadly. He's got to warn her.

"Warn her of what Mr. Axe? Just tell me what I want to know and all of this will disappear."

Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. The word echoes in his mind, and the blackness of it is comforting. He wants to disappear into the darkness. The unfeeling emptiness. But Maddie's eyes and those damn crocodiles won't let him. They're biting at his fingers, his toes. Eating the soles of his feet, and it burns. Burns. Burns. Burns.

Burns right through him. And his soul is black. Charcoal on white canvas.

"Michael!" Jesse's voice, but Maddie's face, and her eyes swimming with crocodiles, biting and snapping at him; killing him with their teeth.

"In here!"

"Hold it right there!"

Gun shots booming. Loud. Too loud. And the red is dripping down his chin, he can feel it. It's like tiny red ants, biting, biting, biting him, eating him alive. He has to get them off, brush them away before they crawl into his belly through his mouth and eat him from the inside out.

"What did you do to him?" Michael's voice. Anger. Orange, like flickering flames across his skin.

Laughter and then a gunshot and silence.

"Shit."

"What do you think they gave him?"

Sam wishes that he could see, anything other than the bodiless heads, and the darkness. The flames of anger licking at boots.

"I don't know, but it doesn't look good. I think we're going to have to get him to a hospital." Michael's voice breaks over him like water, cool and soothing.

Touch. It's like a thousand nails being driven into his skin, and he can't hear for the screams, the tearing of his throat, the burning of his lungs. It hurts and he disappears in a pool of black.

"How's he doing, Michael?"

Maddie's voice reaches Sam through a fog of uncertainty, and he wants to answer, wants to pull himself up through this veil of fog and take the pain and worry from her voice, but the fog's too thick and heavy.

"The doctors say that he'll be fine once the drugs are out of his system."

"What did those bastards do to him?"

The pressure of a hand on his, squeezing, isn't painful, and Sam does his best to squeeze back, offer comfort in return.

"Gave him some cocktail of hallucinatory drugs, but they miscalculated, gave him too much."

"And, you expect him just to recover from this, just like that?"

Maddie snaps her fingers, and Sam can imagine the fire in her eyes. Something he's always loved about her. She stands by those she stands by, and doesn't back down. Defends those who can't defend themselves.

"What did you say?" Maddie's face is hovering over his and that's when Sam realizes that his eyes are open, and he blinks up into her face. Her eyes are filled with a fiery passion, and something else.

"Uh…"

Michael holds a straw to his lips and he greedily drinks the water, breathing easier when Maddie backs up some, giving him some space.

"Did you just say that you love me?"

She pins him with a piercing, calculated look.

And, though he could deny it, Sam chooses not to. He's spent, god knows how long, in the hands of some pretty sick bastards, going out of his mind, and the only grounding force throughout all of it, even though she wasn't even there, was Maddie.

"Yeah, I love you. You got a problem with that?"

Maddie raises an eyebrow. Arms crossed over her chest, she gives him a once over, nods, and then smiles.

Maddie's eyes glow and she smiles in a self-satisfied way. "No, I ain't got a problem with that."

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Reviews are greatly appreciated, even coveted. Thank you


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